Roast celeriac with charred capsicum sauce and hemp dukkah

Celeriac is a vegetable that's so often overlooked, but while it’s not the prettiest number, it’s delicious. Here it’s roasted until creamy, then served with a romesco sauce and a sprinkle of dukkah.

Roast celeriac with charred capsicum sauce and hemp dukkah. Credit: Freshly Picked with Simon Toohey

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  1:30 hour

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

Celeriac

• 1 celeriac
• 20 ml white wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper

Sauce

• 2 red capsicum
• ½ lemon, juiced
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
• ¼ cup blanched almonds

Hemp seed dukkah

• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 2 tbsp hemp seeds
• 2 tbsp coriander seeds, toasted
• ½ tsp salt
• 75 ml olive oil

To serve

• 1 bunch dill

Cooling time: 5 minutes.

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Take a piece of aluminium foil large enough to wrap around the whole celeriac, then layer a piece of baking paper on top. Push the two layers into a shallow baking tray.
2. Sit the celeriac on the baking paper and foil, pour over the vinegar, olive oil and salt and pepper and wrap up so the celeriac is fully covered by the foil.
3. Put on a baking tray and cook for 1 hour 30 minutes or so until a skewer can slide in and out. This time will change depending on the size of the celeriac, a small one will take closer to 45 minutes.
4. In the meantime, place the capsicums on a gas cook top ring over high heat and cook all over until black. They will make crackling sounds but don’t worry this is normal. Keep turning the peppers after a couple of minutes until they are black all over and collapse. (Alternatively, you could blacken the capsicum under a grill). Place them in a bowl and put a plate over the top to steam for 5 minutes.
5. Once the capsicums are cool enough to handle, remove the skins, stem and seeds. Keep any liquids.
6. Add the capsicum flesh, reserved liquid, olive oil, chilli powder and lemon juice and blitz to combine. Add a good pinch of salt and stir through. Set aside.
7. Grind thyme, oregano, hemp and coriander seeds to a rough powder with a mortar and pestle or in a blender. Add a pinch of salt and the oil and combine. Set aside. (See Note)
8. Once the celeriac is soft, remove from the oven and slice into quarters.
9. Pour the romesco sauce into your serving dish, top with celeriac, drizzle over the hemp seed dukkah dressing and top with sprigs of dill.

 

Note

You can make larger quantities of the dukkah and store in the fridge for later use.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.